the humming goes on
by Plum'oh
Summary: CQL 'verse, post-episode 33. / jiang cheng is looking for a body that is no longer here.


**Rating:** T

**Summary:** jiang cheng is looking for a body that is no longer here.

**Disclaimer:** The characters belong to Mo Xiang Tong Xiu.

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**One-shot:** the humming goes on

jiang cheng goes back alone to the nightless city. he doesn't bring any disciples and doesn't tell anyone from the other sects where he is headed—it's no one's business what he does in his spare time, after all, and they're all busy celebrating anyway.

the wind howls and the pebbles under his feet rumble. the road is empty, exacerbating noises and the silent voices of those who had been; it's not safe, people would say, but there is no more threat to the world after their victory against the one that caused so much grief to anyone who so much as made eye contact with him.

(jiang cheng thinks he hears a laugh, bright and carefree, but when he turns around he only sees blood and despair twisting a smiling face.)

the battlefield has been cleaned and the corpses of the cultivators who fell brought back to their sects. jiang cheng's steps are heavy, each one of them increasing the dread that's pooling in his stomach. he wants to forget, but he can't forgive.

the scars left by the sunshot campaign remain rooted in this cursed city. bones and swords are scattered on the ground, among weeds and sand and blood stains that feed the soil. jiang cheng ignores it all, eyes searching for only one thing, and the more he looks, the less willing he is to continue. right or left, front or behind, all he can see is remains and bones that have been lying there for days or months—the nasty smell is choking him and almost too much for him to handle, but he keeps going because he has to. he has to keep going for peace of his own mind, to cut ties with everything that's happened.

there are only white bones on endless land that is spitting fire and mockery. jiang cheng doesn't find a body. there is no body to retrieve, like the earth swallowed it whole and didn't let him decide what to do with it—like he didn't even deserve to take care of the shell of the one he was in the right to have at his mercy. jiang cheng's blood boils, red fury overwhelming him and wrapping him in a layer of a feeling of hot injustice. everything burns—his eyes that quickly blink, his hands that tighten around sandu, his mouth that roars, his heart that aches.

he screams and screams and screams, hitting with his sword every surface he comes across, kicking every bone in his way, lifting anything that could cover something.

and there, he uncovers a black dizi, glowing with rancor and madness, humming softly as the wind knocks on it. jiang cheng doesn't move; his fingers hover above it, an irrational fear gripping him as he stares at the accursed tassel that is somehow still intact. how dare he—how dare he carry on him the symbol of a place (of a home) he rejected, that he destroyed and never atoned for? jiang cheng never saw the damn dizi up close before; nothing about it feels right, from its unnatural deep color to the pulse it's emitting despite the lack of player to bring it to life.

there is no body to retrieve.

it's the last remnant of wei wuxian in this world, the last item he had on him before his demise. a tool that instilled dread and brought havoc.

the stark contrast of the black flute among the white bones is almost a joke, as if jiang cheng was meant to find this weapon instead of a corpse. so be it. even if there was a body, its ashes wouldn't have been put in the lotus pier's ancestral hall (wei wuxian defected from yunmengjiang, after all).

jiang cheng picks up chenqing with the utmost care, though his fingers wrap around it in a death grip. he can't play the dizi, not like how wei wuxian did. nevertheless, ghost sounds are curling around him like a misty veil, whispering words he can't hear as he marches out of the nightless city.

chenqing keeps singing, even if there is nothing to control and nothing to protect anymore. jiang cheng becomes deaf to its prayer, but doesn't forget.

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Hi thanks for reading, Yunmeng shuangjie can stomp on my heart and they did


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